Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chinbrook: Why It Occurs
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Chinbrook, finding it before your engine runs usually means a drain and a full flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the why it takes place and the how to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of current diesels driven round Chinbrook and Middle Park hold another fluid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has a filler of its own. Many of vehicles have a single flap for both, whereas some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
Chinbrook: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Grove Park Road, or outside The Bat and Ball on the way home after work.
Then the car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Grove Park or the heart of Chinbrook: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt around Chinbrook or a drive out in Horn Park. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- On many cars, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Grove Park, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is around Greater London — a routine to follow.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Chinbrook Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Chinbrook?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your engine. Leave the ignition off as well, because on many diesels it by itself starts your pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Esso, the BP or somewhere else. Your own driveway in Chinbrook is the place it should stay.
Where your motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then switch the car off. The next exit means the place to leave if you are on the M20, under 10 miles from Chinbrook. A short hop across Chinbrook is a smaller job than a run towards London, under 10 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians arrive in Chinbrook, what takes place?
Our van comes to your car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Bannatyne's Health Club, or by Marvels Lane Primary School. Those replies settle this work and our quote, so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. That price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then your tank is emptied and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, we fire it up and confirm that it is running correctly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once we arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Chinbrook, for a moment
Chinbrook is a suburban area in southeast London, situated on the banks of the River Ravensbourne at an elevation of around 41 metres. Chinbrook lies approximately 8.6 miles from central London and is close to neighbouring areas such as Grove Park and Mottingham. Chinbrook is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting the typical residential architecture of the region. Chinbrook forms part of the larger London urban landscape, with nearby Plaistow also being a significant local centre.
AdBlue drains in Chinbrook and across Greater London
Over SE postcodes, the teams covering Chinbrook — a residential suburb — work the surrounding places too, Plaistow and Mottingham included. A postcode starting SE12 9 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting the car is not needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to City of London School Sports Ground, a side street near Grove Park Library: we drain the car where it stands. Guessing doesn't help behind St Augustine, close to a boundary, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
Chinbrook people: the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it stands, anywhere in Greater London: keep it off and call 0333 366 0103.